My farm-bred Missouri Grandmother raised me. From early on my breakfasts were something like biscuits (or pancakes or waffles), eggs, bacon (ham, pork chops), gravy sometimes, juice or fruit and milk. I was a bronchitis/asthma prone child and given to anemia. The family doctor told Gramma to give me a small glass of red wine (iron, you know) before I went to school in the morning (mixed with a little water). Perhaps that’s why I liked school so much? I’ve cut down some, but at age 77 I still have bacon and eggs, toast or muffins, fruit or juice and coffee most mornings in some combination, sometimes cereal. Without protein, I’m dragging about 10am. I’m not heavy, either. I ate the same way when I was having nine children and couldn’t gain ENOUGH to suit the doctor. My first trip to Rome with the bread/jelly/coffee & milk breakfast was a real trial! OH – I save the red wine for evenings now.

Weekdays I’ll have an challah roll or a croissant with coffee.
Saturdays, since I have a little more time, I’ll have buttered
english muffins with jam or a buttered roll. Sundays I go
out for brunch with friends after Mass. That’s when I have
eggs over easy with hash browns and wheat toast. If I’m
really hungry I’ll add crispy bacon. Coffee is a staple.
The stronger, the better.

Scothch for breakfast!? I’d say ugh except that I used to work with guys who started the day with a shot and a beer! But, Padre, you gotta spread the jam all the way to the edge of the muffin to bring out ALL the flavor!

In the culinary traditions of many cultures, though, a small amount of alcohol, very often spirits, is or was until recently an integral part of the morning meal.

One can think of the New England tradition of taking a gill of cider in the morning, or the Bavarian tradition of a small cup of red wine, or the northern German tradition of taking a small shot of schnapps.

Even in the broader Anglo-American tradition, a small glass of beer with bacon, eggs, hash browns, etc. was not uncommon until the near-total mechanization of agricultural labor.

The folks in the Italian Veneto region break fast on a small glass of grappa and fried anchovies. It is called, “grappin e pasciolin” in the regional dialect, and it does get your motor running.

On most of the continent, drinking during the day is not frowned upon and is quite often expected.

This is a cultural holdover from the age before heavy industry.

I recall how, at noon or so, in a local bar (that means a coffee shop/diner-type place here, but they also serve booze), two men I had earlier observed at work with some machinery on the street came in and ordered Campari-and-gin aperitifs (an acquired taste, but one that rewards, I know). They then ordered sandwiches and a quart (actually 66cl, a little more than a pint, but the story sounds better if I say a quart, and I can always claim I was rounding up) of beer, each. I wouldn’t have made anying of this, had their conversation been dominated by the recent spate of workplace accidents in Italy. “Yeah,” the two agreed, “‘THEY’ need to do more to stop these sorts of things from happening.” They finished their drinks, took their sandwiches and beer, and went back to their big machines.

I am reposting this because I made too many stupid typos and other errors:

Scotch really isn’t a good eye-opener.

In the culinary traditions of many cultures, though, a small amount of alcohol, very often spirits, is or was until recently an integral part of the morning meal.

One can think of the New England tradition of taking a gill of cider in the morning, or the Bavarian tradition of a small cup of red wine, or the northern German tradition of taking a small shot of schnapps.

Even in the broader Anglo-American tradition, a small glass of beer with bacon, eggs, hash browns, etc. was not uncommon until the near-total mechanization of agricultural labor.

The folks in the Italian Veneto region break fast on a small glass of grappa and fried anchovies. It is called, “grappin e pesciolin” in the regional dialect, and it does get your motor running.

On most of the continent, drinking during the day is not frowned upon and is quite often expected.

This is a cultural holdover from the age before heavy industry.

I recall how, at noon or so, in a local bar (that means a coffee shop/diner-type place here, but they also serve booze), two men I had earlier observed at work with some machinery on the street came in and ordered Campari-and-gin aperitifs (an acquired taste, but one that rewards, I know). They then ordered sandwiches and a quart (actually 66cl, a little more than a pint, but the story sounds better if I say a quart, and I can always claim I was rounding up) of beer, each. I wouldn’t have made anying of this, had their conversation been dominated by anything other than the spate of fatal workplace accidents that had raised hackles in Italy during the period in which I observed the exchange. “Yeah,” the two agreed, “’THEY’ need to do more to stop these sorts of things from happening.” They finished their drinks, took their sandwiches and beer, and went back to their big machines.

I’m a zombie in the morning unless I have my coffee and a good breakfast. My favorite is an everything bagel with cream cheese, lox, and red onions. Good lox is pricey so most days I have Irish oatmeal with cinnamon & brown sugar and some fruit.

On weekdays, prior to going to work, I have two pieces of toast, coffee, fruit juice, and some type of protein (meat, cheese, or peanut butter). On weekends I may have the same, or I may have eggs and bacon or sausage. Occasionally my wife and I will go out for breakfast on Saturday, that usually involves, eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast, coffee and juice. On very rare occasions, my wife will develop a yearning and we’ll have either French toast or pancakes for breakfast with bacon or sausage, coffee, and juice.

Many days I skip breakfast. It’s all I can do to get to work sort of on time. I’ve made a practice lately, though, of hard-boiling 5 or 6 eggs at the beginning of the week and leaving them in fridge, so I can grab one each morning, peel it over the sink, and eat it on my way out the door. I also brought a whole bunch of packets of instant oatmeal to work, and when I don’t do that I’ll sometimes have one for breakfast once I get to work. Other times the oatmeal substitutes for lunch if I haven’t brought any, or if I won’t be home until late, I’ll eat one right before I leave to tide me over through my evening activities. It saves me from spending 8-10 dollars on sandwiches for sometimes 2 meals a day. This thread, though, has me considering skipping my oatmeal and running across the street to the deli for a bagel this morning!

I usually don’t have time for a real breakfast on weekdays. Usually,it’ just a bagel or a hot sausage with some OJ(The drink, not the felon.)Weekends are different. Saturday, everyone is home so we can have french toast, baked potatoes and scrapple,or something like that.
Sunday breakfast is big here, usually with multiple things:Scrambled eggs,sausage,homefries, grits, pancakes or waffles, bacon, and the kicker: scrapple.
I don’t understand why some people don’t like scrapple.As long as you don’t look at the ingredients….

On weekdays and Sundays, when things tend to be a little time-sensitie as regards getting to a destination – I usually have cold cereal with milk (sometimes banana on it), a glass of fruit juice, and toast. 1, 2, 3 items; so – that’s a ‘large’ breakfast.

On a Saturday, when I might have a little more time, I go to a local Irish bakery for their Irish Breakfast roll. The works – eggs, sausage, rasheers, black & white pudding – on a sub roll. That’s one item, so that’s a …small breakfast?

I see my problem, now. I need to eat more ‘small’ breakfasts. Then, maybe I’ll lose some weight!

I have cereal [instant oatmeal or cold-depends on what’s in the cupboard], bread [toast, bagels or waffles-again depends on I have on hand], and hot tea [sometimes plain, sometimes with a little milk if it’s too hot].

If I go out to breakfast, I like eggs[usually overeasy and a little hard], hash browns[Denny’s makes the BEST!], bacon, toast or bagel, and hot tea.

Coffee I drink only if I’m ‘on the road’.

When I traveled on vacations in Europe, I LOVED croissants, brioches, and cafe-au-lait! And when I went to England, I always took advantage of the hotel ‘all-you-can-eat’ breakfast. Many times i took croissants and other small pieces of bread to ‘nosh’ on later in the day.

I work at home most mornings so nothing prevents me from having breakfast… but I don’t really like to. I don’t feel like eating when I first wake up. If there’s some leftover cake or pie or something tasty like that, then maybe. I like a little sugar to jump-start my system. But I can’t stand the massive infusions of carbs and grease that some people like to give themselves first thing in the morning. That just leaves me feeling sleepy and bloated for hours, which is the last thing I want in the mornings. Unfortunately, my husband is a big fan of that sort of breakfast, so on weekends he’s always trying to persuade me to accompany him to IHOP or a local diner for a big plate of carbs’n’grease. Blech!

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“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

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“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. . . . Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

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